81 Facts About Rachel Reeves

Rachel Jane Reeves was born on 13 February 1979 and is a British politician who has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer since July 2024.

Rachel Reeves previously held various shadow ministerial and shadow cabinet portfolios between 2010 and 2015 and from 2020 to 2024.

Rachel Reeves studied PPE at the University of Oxford before obtaining a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics.

Rachel Reeves joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen, and later worked in the Bank of England.

Rachel Reeves endorsed Ed Miliband in the 2010 Labour leadership election and joined his frontbench in October 2010 as Shadow Pensions Minister.

Rachel Reeves was promoted to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2011, and later became Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2013.

Rachel Reeves was reelected to Parliament at the 2015 general election, and following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader the same year, she left the shadow cabinet and returned to the backbenches.

Rachel Reeves was reelected in both the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

Rachel Reeves presented her first budget in October 2024, where she introduced the largest tax rises at a budget since March 1993 which is forecast to set the tax burden to its highest level in recorded history.

Rachel Reeves was born on 13 February 1979 in Lewisham.

Rachel Reeves cites the influence of her father on her and her sister Ellie Rachel Reeves' socially democratic politics.

Rachel Reeves recalls how, when she was eight years old, her father, Graham, pointed out the then Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock on the television and "told us that was who we voted for".

Rachel Reeves says she and her sister have "both known we were Labour since then".

Rachel Reeves joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen.

Rachel Reeves was educated at a comprehensive school, the Cator Park School for Girls in Beckenham.

Rachel Reeves joined the Bank of England in September 2000 as part of their graduate scheme.

In 2006, Rachel Reeves moved to Leeds to work for the retail arm of HBOS.

In 2024, due to criticism of Rachel Reeves saying she had worked as an economist at HBOS, her LinkedIn CV was changed, and her role at the bank was updated to "Retail Banking".

Rachel Reeves has said she was once interviewed for a job at Goldman Sachs but turned it down despite saying that the job could have made her "a lot richer".

Rachel Reeves stood as the Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the Conservative safe seat of Bromley and Chislehurst at the 2005 general election, finishing second behind the sitting Conservative Party MP Eric Forth.

Rachel Reeves sought nomination for the Leeds West seat at the 2010 general election, seeking to replace John Battle, who had chosen to retire.

Rachel Reeves was selected to contest the seat from an all-women shortlist of Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidates.

Rachel Reeves was promoted to the post of Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in October 2011.

Rachel Reeves caused further controversy in early 2015 by stating "We [Labour] don't want to be seen as, and we're not, the party to represent those who are out of work".

Rachel Reeves supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election following mass resignations in protest of Corbyn's leadership amid the 2016 European Union membership referendum, but Corbyn was re-elected as leader and Reeves remained on the backbenches for the remainder of his leadership.

In September 2016, Rachel Reeves described her constituency as being "like a tinderbox" that could explode if immigration was not curbed.

On 12 July 2017, Rachel Reeves was elected chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and was reelected in January 2020, serving until her return to the frontbench in April 2020.

When Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 after winning the party leadership election, Rachel Reeves was appointed as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with responsibility for Labour's response to Brexit and shadowing Michael Gove.

Rachel Reeves moved into the role of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in a shadow cabinet reshuffle on 9 May 2021, replacing Anneliese Dodds.

Rachel Reeves was particularly critical of Kwarteng's budget, as it led to financial instability.

In December 2021, Rachel Reeves said she would support a 2p cut to the Income Tax basic rate, if the Conservatives proposed that.

Rachel Reeves said Labour planned to replace business rates with a new system that charged shops fairly compared to larger online businesses.

Rachel Reeves said Britain had seen Japanese-style Lost Decades of growth, which she said the Labour government would reverse through following fiscal rules and eliminating borrowing for day-to-day spending, with no unfunded election spending commitments.

Rachel Reeves did not think Britain would rejoin the European Union or its single market in the next 50 years.

Rachel Reeves said she was against the return of freedom of movement for workers between the UK and EU.

Rachel Reeves said that the falling membership of the Labour Party was a good thing, as it was shedding unwelcome supporters.

In 2023, after the Labour Party dropped its pledge to scrap university tuition fees, Rachel Reeves said "the circumstances since [Starmer] became leader have changed significantly" and blamed the Conservative government's handling of the economy for the policy shift.

Later that month, Rachel Reeves was ranked number one in the New Statesman's Left Power List 2023, above Keir Starmer, which described her as "the most influential person on the British left today".

On 31 January 2024, Rachel Reeves announced that Labour would not reintroduce a cap on bankers' bonuses, despite having questioned why the cap was being removed by the Conservatives in October 2023.

The next day, Rachel Reeves announced that Labour would not raise corporation tax in the next parliament if it got into power.

Rachel Reeves became the first woman to hold the office of Chancellor in its over 800-year history.

Rachel Reeves announced her first budget would be released on 30 October 2024.

Rachel Reeves cancelled the previous government's plans for the Advanced British Standard, and several planned infrastructure projects.

On 30 October, Rachel Reeves presented her first budget, which was the first Labour budget since 2010 and the first budget in history to be delivered by a woman.

Rachel Reeves later said that it was not a budget she would want to repeat, and accepted that the tax rises would likely hit wage growth for workers.

Rachel Reeves said that she was "wrong" during the election about ruling out potential tax rises.

Rachel Reeves was a proponent of quantitative easing in 2009, to alleviate the Great Recession having studied the effects of the policy on Japan in the early 2000s.

Since 2022, Rachel Reeves has espoused "modern supply-side economics", an economic policy which focuses on infrastructure, education and labour supply by rejecting tax cuts and deregulation.

In May 2023, Rachel Reeves coined the term "securonomics" to refer to her version of this economic policy, originally in a public address at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Rachel Reeves said she believed that the active state is part of an "emerging global consensus" led by Biden's administration which will replace the neoliberal economic consensus, and that economic policy must be driven by the need for security.

Since the election, Rachel Reeves has stated that "there's not a huge amount of money so we need to unlock private-sector investment," which appears to preclude a significant fiscal role for the state in furthering productivity, and is thus closer to the traditional supply side economics that modern supply side rejects.

The New Statesman reported that in an interview Rachel Reeves said "a Labour government would not introduce annual wealth and land taxes; raise income tax; equalise capital gains rates and income tax; rejoin the European single market and customs union; change the Bank of England's inflation target and reform its rigid mandate; or take private utilities into public ownership, except for the railways".

Rachel Reeves supported the High Speed 2 rail project, and raised the issue in the House of Commons, as well as campaigning for the proposed Kirkstall Forge railway station.

Rachel Reeves said that independent schools "segregate children based on parental wealth" and "entrench privilege and divide communities".

Rachel Reeves has been supportive of Labour Against Private Schools, a campaign group calling for private schools to be integrated into the state sector and previously for Eton College to be abolished, stating that she was "proud to stand" with the group at its launch in July 2019.

In 2008, Rachel Reeves was involved in the campaign to save the historic Bramley Baths.

Rachel Reeves instigated a partnership between Leeds Arts University, Leeds City College and Leeds City Council to create a new public artwork in Leeds that featured women.

In 2018, whilst speaking about low unemployment levels, Rachel Reeves said that employment was a "way into poverty" and not a way out of it.

Rachel Reeves later said that the cost of living crisis, along with austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic, had severely impacted families, and proposed the Labour party's new deal for working people, reforms to Universal Credit and a child poverty strategy as measures to help reduce child poverty.

Early into her tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves opposed scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

Rachel Reeves cited Labour's proposals for the creation of more nurseries and free breakfast clubs at all primary schools as evidence of Labour's commitment to tackling the issue; stating that they would have a "material impact" on child poverty.

Rachel Reeves has supported banning transgender women from competing in women's sport and excluding transgender women from using women's spaces.

Rachel Reeves referred to her maternal grandparents suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Dementia for the last years of their lives as examples of why she understands the desire for assisted dying legislation, but said she would fear that people would be "under pressure", and said that she would want to make sure the "right safeguards" were in place.

Rachel Reeves voted in favour of introducing same-sex marriage in England and Wales in 2013, and voted in favour of introducing same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland in 2019.

Rachel Reeves opposed US President Joe Biden's commitment to sending cluster bombs to Ukraine.

Rachel Reeves is a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, contributed a chapter to a book about Israeli politics and society, and supports the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.

In 2014, Rachel Reeves abstained on a parliamentary motion to recognise the State of Palestine, which was passed with support of the Labour Party under the leadership of Ed Miliband, after Rachel Reeves and other pro-Israel Labour MPs requested Miliband not to hold a three-line whip in favour of the motion.

Rachel Reeves additionally said that she wanted to see "a Palestinian state existing alongside a safe and secure Israel" but said that terrorism was "not the way to get there".

Rachel Reeves campaigned to remain in the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Post-brexit, Rachel Reeves called for imports and exports to be kept tariff-free, for there to be "adequate investment in infrastructure" across the country rather than just in London, for a system of universal free childcare for all working parents of pre-school children which she said should be funded by scrapping the cuts to inheritance tax by Chancellor George Osborne, and for the UK to "shadow" to the EU's employment legislation.

Rachel Reeves supported a people's vote, a proposed second referendum on Brexit, and said that Labour would campaign for remaining in the EU if the second referendum was held.

In 2020, as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Rachel Reeves said she would "much rather" the country to remain in the EU but said it would not help the country "move on", and confirmed that the Labour party would not rejoin the EU if elected to government.

Rachel Reeves has referred to immigration as a leading cause of the country voting to leave in the referendum, saying in an interview with the Financial Times in 2024 that when her constituents voted to leave it was "purely because of immigration".

Rachel Reeves later said in March 2024 that China "looms large on the world stage" in reference to what she perceives as a shift in the world to a "unbalanced multipolarity".

Rachel Reeves has previously called for reducing the economic reliance of the UK with China.

Rachel Reeves' visit to China in the middle of January 2025 aims to strengthen economic ties with Beijing.

Rachel Reeves told BBC News that some sentences "were not properly referenced" and this would be corrected in future reprints.

In June 2023, it was announced that Rachel Reeves was elected an Honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford.

On 5 May 2024, it was announced that Rachel Reeves would have her name engraved on a new Ribbons metal sculpture in Leeds city centre.

Rachel Reeves is married to Nicholas Joicey, a civil servant and Gordon Brown's former private secretary and speech writer.

Rachel Reeves announced her first pregnancy on 20 September 2012 and gave birth to a daughter, and in 2015 to a son.